Christ and culture.

As I noted a few weeks ago, I've been working through ideas of Christianity and its interaction with culture, particularly with the state. I finished Carson's Christ and Culture Revisited a few days ago and actually feel like I need to read it again; the basic outline of his argument is clear, but there were definitely places that were dense enough that they take a second reading to dig its depths.

At the outset, Carson established his interlocutor as Richard Niebuhr and his book Christ and Culture, published in 1951, which constructed a typology that has shaped much of the thinking on this topic:

a) Christ against culture.

b) Christ of culture.

c) Christ above culture.

i. Synthesists

ii. Dualists

d) Christ transforming culture.

Carson spends a good deal of time deconstructing each of these archetypes and, in the end, concludes that they are unhelpfully reductionistic (not to mention the fact that the "Christ of culture" position is wholly unbiblical and smells of the liberal theology of Schleiermacher). Instead, Carson contends that the way forward is understanding biblical theology and the key turning points of the biblical narrative.

I can't go into the details, but a few interesting things he pointed out...

• Even if all the social issues were legislated the way the "evangelical right" wants them to be, it would merely turn back the clock to the late 1950s; and the U.S. was no theocracy in the 1950s.
• The "church" in the "separation of church and state" usually refers to the religion or institution; there is something to be said for individual Christians in the state and participating in it.
• Romans 13 not only tells us to submit to the state, but also the proper exercise of state authority, which Christians now also have the ability to participate in.

This short post is clearly not giving Carson his due nor adequately fleshing out his position, but hopefully I'll return to it again in a later post. I'm thinking about rereading his section on epistemology, which by far was the densest portion of the volume.

Reading Updates:

• In progress: True Sexual Morality, Love in Hard Places, Hebrews (quiet time), The Christian Life (Brandon), Romans 13 (Mike), The Gift of Death (REL 190W)
• I'm eyeing my copy of Edwards' Charity and Its Fruits, which I've owned for a while, but have yet to crack open.

General Updates:

• Giving blood today at the Red Cross HQ on E Street.
• Dropping by Carpe Librium, the used books extravaganza in 2100 Pennsylvania.
• Writing and essay on church and state relations, which is why I was reading the Carson book.
• Struggling through ECON 180...difficult!